No-bid contracts, bribery and fraud
Army Times
Army Times Editorial
posted September 25, 2007

No-bid contracts, bribery, fraud — that's just the start of the alleged improprieties under investigation by the Army, which has launched two investigations into contracting problems across the service.

Army Secretary Pete Geren said Aug. 30 these efforts would determine what went wrong. But he has already identified one factor: a lack of acquisition professionals.

Former Pentagon acquisition chief Jacques Gansler, who will lead one of Geren's investigations, told reporters that the Army's acquisition corps has shrunk as "big-dollar contract activities" rose 83 percent over the past several years.

When you outsource military functions and cut oversight as defense spending soars, you make fraud and abuse all but inevitable. It rises as military functions are transferred to private hands.

Geren's announcement was prompted by alleged fraud in contracts let by the Army's Kuwait contracting office, where officials disbursed some $9 billion over four years to support troops in Iraq and Afghanistan — more than 18,000 contracts in all, each of which will now be examined for problems.

But the moves came just days after an Army major and members of his family were charged with taking about $9.6 million in bribes — the latest of about 20 Army employees who have been charged in more than 70 criminal contract-fraud cases over the past several years, The Associated Press reported.

The Army is feeling the pinch of a depleted acquisition corps. The Humvee-replacement effort called the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, once slated for initial production in 2010, has slid two years. Army officials blamed that partly on the lack of acquisition professionals.

While Geren said officials will wait for completion of the investigations, he said, "I think that we will find that we need more acquisition professionals."

The billion-dollar question: Will more be added?

Original Text